I’ve just been alerted to an interesting article in Psychology Today by Michael Bader (a psychologist from San Francisco), hypothesizing that right-wing attitudes to health care reform may come from a deep-seated fear of dependency. There’s some interesting ideas in here, whether you agree with him or not, it certainly gets you thinking. Often people cite the pursuit of freedom as their primary reason for being against Government-run healthcare. But surely this is irrational? If you are desperately sick and can’t afford to pay to see a doctor you are far from ‘free’ in any sense. In these type of cases Obamacare would increase the level of people’s freedoms. Why are people opposing policy that will ultimately benefit them? Is it that they don’t want to accept a societal responsibility to help others who can’t help themselves? Surely freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin, and one without the other is an illusion? Bader tries to plumb the deep psychological depths of these questions and comes up with some interesting suggestions.Read it here

Phonode is a new website devised by the UE collective. It will focus on the more exploratory fringes of electronic music, demystifying the techniques used by musicians and artists working in the field, reviewing albums and equipment as well as examining the new processes and ideas which drive its creation. As the boundaries between noise and techno blur, disparate scenes seem to cross-pollinate more than ever before, and electronic music returns to a more experimental DIY aesthetic – the time seems ripe to launch a fresh investigation into where electronic music is at, and where it’s going next…